Save the Pandas?

[quote="biostudent84"]You're missing the point. In a highly complex ecosystem, low diet diversity is an ADVANTAGE. If you only eat bamboo, and your neighbor only eats leaves, then you're not going to get into fights over food rights. Low diet diversity allows more species to live in the same area than normal. I also agree with ur this opinion. One may say that the organism able to eat variety of foods will also be able to live on a single type of food in order to avoid the competition, but the efficiency to digest would be lower than those organisms adapted for eating that specefic food only.So, the organisms adapted for eating that specefic food R at advantage as they avoid competition without reduction in the efficiency of food utilization. But , the population of these food specific species willn't be able to increase that much because
1. the capacity of an area to accomodate these organisms is limited
2.and the availablity of the other areas wich fulfil their food requirement is also lower
i.e. the organisms eating diverse foods can live in more places than these food specific organisms . So, even if we wouldn't have cut the bamboo forests , the panda-population wouldn't have increased that much.
So, from this pt. of view the organisms eating diverse foods are at advantage.
What do U think..........

hrushikesh

This is not opinion. It is basic ecology theory. In the Panda's specific niche, it was advantageous for them to only eat one foodstuff...at least until humans messed everything up.

When a populatin is that limited there is not much room for evolution. Therefore the population evelves far slower than it normally would. As far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong) the panda population has been low for a while.

I guess I should rephrase my question...if a species is dying due to natural causes such as predation by an organism other than humans, do we have a responsibility to save them? My buddy had a great saying the other day, if there was an endangered animal eating an endangered plant, what should you do ?

Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; ~Niebuhr

I see this question "Should pandas be protected" bizarre! of course we should do everything in our power to protect the species.

Let’s just imagine the species is not threatened and it is very common where would it be in another 2-3000 years time? It will obviously adapt or perish, you say it’s come to an "evolutionary dead end" but it is still playing an active ecological role in seed dispersal, cross pollination of other endemic flora species, its cubs become prey items for predators, homosexuality is an evolutionary dead end!

The Koala, 3 Toed sloth etc have they come to an evolutionary dead end? When ya think about it modern man as we no him today very near came to an evolutionary dead end where we would we all be if we were not given the chance to evolve?

"They fail to adapt to changing conditions" you probably would to if someone came along and completely decimated the environment you live in, I think for an animal that is failing to adapt to changing conditions its a pretty tough customer to come this far after centuries of poaching and habitat destruction.

The Panda as we see it today is simply in the position it’s in because of the pressures placed upon it by the greed of man, not to mention Chinas ever exploding population.

I think they are a dead end. It's a sad fact to face, because they are pandas and just thinking that they will be gone forever frightens me but thats nature. Humans have played a role in their populations but they definately are doomed...I mean, just think about their gene pools, its running short on variability.

Strict specialisation of species is blade with two edge (I think this is the phrase). If enviromental factors are stable than species will thrive but if sudden change occure they will moste likely die. Now, the real quistion is, as said before, are we responsible for those changes or not? If we are than we should protect them if not than no protection. I do not know the real facts about why are they endanger, is it cause of habitat loss, over hunting... but even if reasons seems natural like succesions of vegetation we should ask ourselves are those succesions happening cause of maybe global warming or some other antropogen reason. I do not know what was the number of pandas like 200 years ago and how much their number decreised but if some large drop of number occured in just last 200 years than it seems strange to me that it was natural cause of it. I think that way because natural changes of ecosystem dosnt occure that quickly.

That's a very good point beetle, how exactly do we know cause and effect? If you believe in the butterfly effect, we're responsible for basically everything...so I guess in a way we do cause the endangering, but on the same thread, I don't think I'll be losing sleep over pandas.

Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; ~Niebuhr

thank.darwin wrote:You should save the endangered plant!And to answer your question - If we (humans) are the reason that they are going extinct then yes we would be obligated to save them.

I agree.
we are a higher intelligence with the capabilities to both ruin and save.

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these".